Percy woke up early in the morning when the sun was barely showing. He put on a Camp Half-Blood shirt. Walking out of the castle he headed for the lake the same one he crossed on the day he arrived at Hogwarts. He squinted his eyes looking around him in the distance he could see the glow of Hagrid's hut. He dipped his feet in the cold dark water.

He took off his shirt and threw it to the side, walk deeper into the lake, fully submersed, he held his breath, not knowing if he could breathe in these waters. Trusting himself he let out a breath and took one in, just like normal. He relaxed the water calmed him down, fixing his thoughts.

He swam towards the bottom of the lake, Hermione taught him about the sea creatures that live in this lake, many of them were dangerous, so he picked a spot where he didn't sense any creatures, allowing him to practice in peace.

Touching his two feet at the lake bottom he took out Riptide, its Celestial bronze glow in the dark. Swinging it around it moved just like it did on land. Even better actually. He was warming up his strokes like spraying WD-40 on a door hinge. He increased the force of the water-resistance around him so that he would have to put more power in moving side to side and in his swing. This would make him faster and stronger on land, Chrion was the one who taught him this trick.

Percy kicked up breaking through the surface his head popped up in the middle of the lake. He swam to the shore, looking for where he lifted his shirt. Drying himself off instantly he missed the touch of the water. He put on his shirt and started walking back from where he came from.

"Oi, Jackson whacha doing here?" Hagrid called from a distance

"Oh, Hagrid," Percy said thinking there was no point in lying anymore to him "I went for a swim."

Hagrid came closer, and now Percy could see him clearly in low light. He was holding two beat-up books in his right hand.

"I didn't know your kind could read," Percy said pointing to the books

"Hmh oh yeah jus' a little something," Hagrid said patting the books "Ya a child of the gods then?"

"Yeah," Percy said clutching riptide

"No need to worry 'bout me I ain' like my relatives," Hagrid said

Percy relaxed somewhat maybe he didn't need to be so worried he did know there were some good giants. 

"Hmh alright," Percy said "Sea you round Hagrid."

Percy walked away going back to the Gryffindor common room. He opened the portrait door as quietly as possible. Luckily no one was around. Swiftly going up the stairs, seeing that his dorm was still asleep. He hoped he might be able to get a nice nap.

Literally, five minutes later Harry woke up stretching and yawning like a newborn dolphin.

"Trying to sleep here," Percy said

"Sorry," Harry said "Never seen you awake this early before,"

"You woke me up,"

"No way that woke you up I do that every day,"

"Shut up," Ron groaned 

Percy got up he couldn't go back to sleep now. He was getting ready for the school day when he realized he had no clean clothes to wear, oh well he looked through his pile of clothes and chose the one that stinks the least. 

Percy was in the middle of Potions class with Layla they were reaching the twelve uses of dragon blood. Percy was pretending to read the book flipping the page every time Snape finished his lap around the classroom.

"Snivle looks mad as long as he mad were good," Layla whispered

"Yeah, me and Harry saw Quirrell the other day," said Percy "We gave him so many compliments he...,"

Percy stopped talking he could feel Snape's eyes on him.

"Jackson, what are you reading?"

"Um well, Professor Snape mhm let me see it's about..."

"Page 322, dragon blood," Layla whisper as quietly as possible

"Page 322 and it's about um Dragon blood," Percy said Layla gave him a smile

"Tell me about one of the uses or is that too much for you," Snape said

"No," Percy said surely he could think of something to say, "They can make your hair greasy," he said in an innocent voice.

Layla and some other students let out a small laugh. Snape turned with his cloke making a whipping sound and went to the top of the class. He looked furious.

"Jackson I will make it easy for you," Snape said "I will see you later today and ten points from Gryffindor."

"Ten!" Percy exclaimed "Crabbe burned down half the class and he didn't lose any points!"

"Five more points from Gryffindor for talking without raising your hand,"

All the Gryffindors looked at Percy like he had a third eye. Even Layla looked angry at him. The bell rang and Percy stood up in a hurry to leave. But before that, he needed to know what Layla was mad about.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong Percy, you know what's wrong,"

"No, I don't all I did was make a joke about Snivilly, which you thought was funny."

"Yeah, but that was before he took fifteen points from us," Layla said "You know what that means! Slytherin is back in first place because of you."

"Oh,"

Percy messed up, Harry was going to kill him, and the whole House was going to kill him. Griffindor was only in first place for a week and because of him, they were back in second. He lost the lead that Harry had gotten them.

"It's not completely your fault," Layla said calming down "Snape shouldn't be taking off so many points,"

"Yeah, now I get to deal with him even more."

"That kinda of a good thing," Layla said "You don't have to spend the rest of the day with Hermione in the library reviewing every single word we learned this year."

"I would much rather be with you guys than with Snivlbitch."

Harry wasn't as mad as Percy thought he would be. Sure Harry was pissed off at first but once he told him why, he was angry at Snape. The rest of the Gryffindors outside of Hermione and Ron didn't seem to agree with Harry. One kid started a rumor about him that he had a crush on Snape, but that was short-lived.

Percy said bye to his friends as they went in separate directions, heading off to the dungeons he thought of what Snape was going to make him do during dentition probably have him write a 1 million word essay on what he did wrong.

He knocked on the door three times. Then he heard a voice "Come on in Jackson."

Percy entered and saw Snape on his desk with an open textbook out and a chair.

"Come on sit," said Snape "You will read this textbook."

That's not bad. Percy could easily fake that.

"Aloud to me."

That's going to be a problem, still not as bad as Percy thought it was going to be. He sat down and looked at the book in front of him, then at Snape, then back at the book. He squinted. his eyes on the page, he read aloud "The first use of Gorgon's blood -"

"Gorgan's blood! Where did you get Gorgan it clearly says dragon blood,"

Percy concentrated "Oh right, Dragons's blood says will have twelve pulses, umm wait that's not right."

"Can you not read Jackson?" Snape asked

"I've got dyslexia all the letters get mixed up." 

"What a lame excuse," Snape snapped "So mean to tell me you can perform such powerful magic, some that even adult wizards can't do, but you can't read." 

"I'm just good at water magic that's all!"

" You're hiding something, Jackson I know, butt I will forget that for now. Just read the book."

Percy didn't know what Snape's problem was "I tried and I can't,"

"Well try aging!" Snape shouted "But this time relax and believe that you can read, it's not that hard, Jackson."

"Fine," Percy didn't concentrate this time and took a deep breath and said to himself  'I know how to read'.

"The first use of Dragon's blood and most common... is in potion brewing, examples include - um wolfbane potions and in the use of - cleaning household supplies."

Percy stared at Snape in disbelief.

"I did it,"

"No shit you can read. You were faking not being able to read the whole time. What else are you hiding no kid can cast such powerful magic."

"No, I actually do have dyslexia,"

Snape replied, "Hmh, if you believe you have it you won't be able to do it, it's all about your mentality Jackson. God knows why, but you have believed for so long that you can't read, you have stop trying. Change your mentality and you will be able to do it."

Percy walked out of detention learning something new, which surprised him a lot. Sure he did struggle a lot reading the book and Snape yelled at him so much his ears started ringing but he also read faster than he has in his whole life.

On his way back to the common room, he ran into Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Layla. They seemed to be heading out of the room.

"Percy, we were just going to go save you from Snivle," said Layla

"It actually went well," said Percy "It wasn't that bad."

"Surprising," Harry mumbled

"Anway that's not the only reason we came to get you," said Hermione opening her mouth but got cut off by Ron

"We're heading off to Hagrid's he wanted to show us something,"

"Ron, you know I can talk for myself."

"Yeah yeah yeah whatever,"

"Hagrid asked for you to be there with us. You know why?" said Harry

"No," said Percy but he did have a fairly good idea why Hagrid could want him there.

They got to Hagrid's hut, they were all surprised to see that all the curtains were closed. They knocked on the wooden door. Hagrid called "Who is it?" before he let them in, and then shut the door quickly behind them.  

It was like an oven inside. Even though it was such a warm day, there was a blazing fire in the grate. Hagrid made them tea and offered them stone sandwiches, which they refused.

"So - yeh wanted to ask me somethin'?"

"Yes," said Harry "We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Sorcerer's Stone apart from Fluffy."

Hagrid frowned at him.

"O' course I can't," he said "Number one, I don't know myself. Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn' tell yeh if I could. That Stone's here fer a good reason."

"Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you do know, you know everything that goes on round here," said Hermione in a warm, flattering voice. Hagrid's beard twitched and they could tell he was smiling.

Layla added after Hermione in the same voice "We only wondered who had done the guarding really." Layla went on "We wondered who Dumbledore has trusted enough to help him, apart from you."

Hagrid's chest swelled at these words. Percy, Harry, and Ron beamed at Hermione and Layla.

"Well, I don' s'pose it could hurt ter tell yeh that... let's see he borrowed Fluffy from me... then some teachers did enchantments... Sprout, Flitwick, McGonagall -" he ticked them off on his fingers, "Quirrell - an' Dumbledore himself did somethin', o' course. Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh yeah, Professor Snape."

"Snape?" everyone said except for Percy

"Guys I don't know Snape doesn't seem that bad," Percy said

"The guy has one detention with him and his a changed man," Ron mumbled.

"Come on Perce, even Hermione believes it's him," said Layla "That got to mean something."

"Guys all I'm saying is maybe we shouldn't be so harsh on him,"

"Did Snape give you anything to drink?" Hermione asked "That could explain his sudden change."

"Percy I think you forget Snape tried to kill me," said Harry

"No Snape didn't give me anything to drink," said Percy "And I might have forgotten that part."

"It's got to be Snape," said Ron "It got to be."

Hagrid said, "Look, Snape helped protect the Stone, he's not about ter steal it."

"You're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, right?" Harry asked anxiously

"Not a soul knows except me an' Dumbledore," said Hagrid proudly.

"Well, that's something," Harry muttered to the others.

Percy still didn't fully believe that Snape was the one behind it all. But the fact that he tried to kill Harry was just too big to overlook.

"Hagrid, I'm burning in here, can we open the windows?" Percy asked fanning himself with his shirt.

"Can't Percy, sorry," said Hagrid flekering his eyes to the fire. Percy looked at it to.

"Hagrid - what's that?"

Percy pointed to the huge, black egg underneath the kettle in the heart of the fire.

"Ah," said Hagrid, fiddling with his beard, "That's er..."

"Where did you get it, Hagrid?" said Ron, crouching over the fire and getting a closer look at the egg. "It must've cost you a fortune."

"Won it," said Hagrid "Las' night. I was down in in the pub havin' a few drinks an' got in a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it."

Percy was confused "What is it?"

"It's a Dargon's egg Percy," Hermione replied

"What are you going to do with it when it's hatched?" Layla asked

"Well, I've bin doin' some reading," said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow the same one Percy saw in his hands this morning. "It's a bit outdated, o' course but it's all in here. What I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them."

He looked very pleased with himself, but Hermione didn't.

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," she said

"That's why Percy's  here," Hagrid said chuckling

"Why would it make a difference if his not?" Ron asked

Hagrid's face turned red "Oh, er -"

Percy finished the sentence for Hagrid "Cause I'm really good at water magic."

"Yrup,"

"You know I think it's a great idea," said Layla "Comiting arson on yer on home, right Hagrid?"

But Hagrid wasn't listening. He was humming merrily as he stroked the fire.

Now they had something else to worry about: what might happen to Hagrid if anyone found out he was hiding an illegal dragon in his hut. Percy definitely didn't want Hagrid to get taken away just when he was starting to trust him.

"Wonder what it's like to have a peaceful life," Ron sighed

"You and me both Ron," Percy said, as evening after evening, they struggled through all the extra homework they were getting. The one thing that helped Percy was Hermione's study schedules if not for those he would have forgotten to study every day.

At breakfast time, Hedwig came, that did reminded Percy he should check up on Kasper and send a letter to Annabeth soon. Anyway Hedwig, brought Harry another note from Hagrid. Which only had two words written on it: It's hatching.

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Sorry for the cliffhanger I wrote the rest of the chapter but it was getting way too long so I cut it off here.